


Clockwork

by neildylandy



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Angst and Humor, Blood, Existential Crisis, Gen, HLVRAI AU - Everyone is an AI, half-life vr but the ai is self-aware (except for the one who isn't), the Free Online Encyclopedia that anyone can edit, the summary is of course from Wikipedia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:35:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24328888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neildylandy/pseuds/neildylandy
Summary: "Simulation is also used when the real system cannot be engaged, because it may not be accessible, or it may be dangerous or unacceptable to engage, or it is being designed but not yet built,or it may simply not exist."
Relationships: The Science Team™, like just as a unit
Comments: 8
Kudos: 171





	Clockwork

**Author's Note:**

> i told my friends that if i made my first ever ao3 upload be the hlvrai fic i wrote at 5am it would be "very cool and sexy of me" and they agreed
> 
> so here you go

They corner him when he's trying to send them all the fuck to sleep.

Gordon doesn't actually think that was ever their _intention,_ if he's being perfectly honest. But, if there's anything he's sure of at this point in this endless, hellish slog through Black Mesa, it's that the Science Team never really _intends_ to do anything. Things happen, and they joke and laugh and yell, and then they collectively move on. Like clockwork.

He _swears_ Benry's face is halfway clipped through the wall right now and staring at him. He's too tired to do anything but raise the one hand he has left to block out that part of the wall. Benry promptly ducks under it so he's still visible. "Smug piece of shit," Gordon mutters under his breath. He can still hear the Team chatting, which means apparently he can't go to sleep yet. "What the fuck are you guys talking about? Go to bed."

"I'm not sleepy yet, Mr. Freeman!" Tommy whines, clearly trying his best to avoid slumping with exhaustion as he sits criss-cross applesauce. "I'm too scared to go to bed."

"Fuck," Gordon whines right back, begrudgingly propping himself back up off the floor. His mood is not improved by the fact that he had to use his stump to do this, and now blood's all over his damn hazard suit again. "What, did you—did you drink too much soda last time, Tommy? Got the jitters?"

"Soda!" Dr. Coomer chirps. Before Gordon can fully resign himself to having to convince him once again that no, there isn't _actually_ any soda around here, he just _said the word out loud,_ Coomer has adopted a more serious expression. "Well, Gordon, your unconscious form can be quite frightening to look at, you know."

"The angles are all wrong," Bubby adds, looking either distinctly ill or covered in alien blood. "You look like a fucked-up little ape-man."

Benry's distant voice possibly pipes in to say " _Gordon Apeman_ ", like it's his new name. Gordon very much wishes he could shoot a gun right now. "What do you mean, my 'angles are wrong'?" he asks, instead. "What's wrong with my angles?" He waves his arm and his stump in front of his face, just in case, but he honestly can't see what they're talking about. Blood does spray out onto Tommy's pants, though. Gordon tries and immediately fails to wipe it off. "Sorry, Tommy."

Tommy doesn't even seem to notice what he's doing. "It's really scary, Mr. Freeman! We all go to bed and just relax, but you get all folded like scrambled eggs."

"A non-euclidean little ape-man," Bubby agrees in a mumble that sounds genuinely disturbed. Gordon takes offense on sheer instinct.

"You just—you mean when you guys ragdoll? To go to sleep?" Gordon asks, baffled.

"Indeed, Gordon!" Coomer says, falling completely limp onto the concrete. "Complete muscle relaxation is an important factor in proper sleeping habits."

"Yeah, well, I don't have—"  
  
Tommy interrupts him. "I know this too! You have to get proper sleep, so you can go to the Dream Course, like Kirby from Kirby's Dream Course."

Coomer interrupts _him._ "Yes! The scientific data we've unearthed at Black Mesa agrees that it's just like Kirby's Dream Course™, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System™."

Benry interrupts _him,_ but all he maybe says is "...ancient e-sport of Kolf."

Gordon laughs, because what the _fuck_ do you say to that. "I was—like I was trying to say, I don't have a button that does _that_ on my body. Or however you guys do it. I have to lie down like a normal person does."

"Gordon, I'm normal!" Coomer says brightly from his ragdolled position on the floor, at the same time Bubby says "You don't lie down like any normal person _I_ know."

"What does _that_ mean?" Gordon protests, pointedly lying back down on the ground like he was about to go to sleep. Maybe the rest of them would figure out how to understand subtle hints and do the same, since they clearly didn't understand extremely unsubtle direct requests. "Look, see? I'm lying down. And my limbs aren't fuckin' flopping around everywhere."

"Speak for yourself," Bubby says, pointing at something slightly behind him.

"What are you—"

"Got that stanky-leg, dude," Benry says, and then he's just clipping out of the wall and sitting there beside all of them, completely nonchalant. "Got that stanky-leg to match your stanky-feet. Stanky Feetman."

"DO YOU SEE THIS?!" Gordon shouts, instantly sitting back up and gesturing frantically at Benry. "Do you see him? You guys have to see him now, right? He's _literally_ sitting right there. Tommy, shoot him."

Tommy shoots him a dozen times. It doesn't do anything but make Gordon put his head in one hand so he doesn't have to look directly at Benry's stupid shit-eating grin. "I think I got him this time, Mr. Freeman!"

"Excellent shooting, Tommy!" Coomer cheers as he un-ragdolls back to his usual seated pose. "You really took that Benry down a notch!"

"Yeah, good job, Tommy, you did good," Gordon says, wearily patting Tommy's shoulder with his remaining hand. 

"Nice," Benry says, before he looks at Gordon's bleeding stump in (what has to be feigned) surprise. "Whoa, man, what happened to your arm? Somethin' happen? You alright?"

Gordon rubs the blood-spray all over Benry's pants because it's the only vengeance he has left. "I fucking hate you so much. I'm gonna make it look like you pissed blood all over your fucking pants."

"That's fucked up," says Bubby, matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, well, I apparently have just an endless amount of fucking blood pouring out of where _my hand used to be,_ _before SOMEONE TOOK IT,_ " Gordon snipes, trying and failing to legibly write the words "eat shit" in blood on Benry's low-resolution-texture vest. "So I might as well use it."

"Oh, dude, that sucks. Who did that?" Benry asks, unfazed by Gordon's frantic attempts to choke him with one hand. "Your handwriting looks pretty shitty."

"I think it's more like fingerpainting at this point," Bubby corrects, after some careful consideration.

"I'm just fucking ignoring you. You're dead to me," Gordon declares, returning to his task because, regrettably, Benry is right and his handwriting does look shitty. He can pretend that at least the advice is coming from Dr. Coomer, who's currently reciting the Wikipedia article on fingerpainting. "Speaking of, did somebody at Black Mesa ever, like, inject me with drugs or something to keep endlessly refilling my blood? Or keeping out...what's it called, sepsis? I'm pretty sure at this point I should be, like, extremely fuckin' dead of sepsis or blood loss by now. It doesn't even hurt that bad anymore." Something occurs to him, and he stops trying to stump-paint. "Wait, shit, is that what they injected _you_ with so you can just never die, or—"

 _Everyone_ has gone silent, which is immediately weird. Dr. Coomer even stopped halfway through a sentence from the article. "...What?"

Bubby leans over to Dr. Coomer and whispers a few words that are still loud enough for Gordon to clearly make out " _he hasn't figured it out yet?_ "

"What? What haven't I figured out?" He's getting kind of alarmed now. Benry is _suspiciously_ silent.

"Oh dear," Coomer says. "I don't believe he's connected the dots just yet..."

Alarm has transitioned smoothly into frustration. "What _dots?!_ What are you _talking_ a—"  
  
Benry opens his mouth and sings some dots into the air. Gordon is actively gesturing for Tommy to shoot him again. Instead—  
  
"Yellow to blue...means we need to tell you," Tommy says, and somehow this reading sounds _solemn,_ which is immediately _even weirder._ "I'm sorry, Mr. Freeman! I thought you already knew! I didn't want to be keeping any secrets."

This feels like a prelude to another fucking betrayal. He pulls his remaining hand protectively to his chest. "What. The _fuck._ Are you all talking about."

Tommy and Bubby seem to look pleadingly at Dr. Coomer. Benry, for his part, is staring into space. Coomer awkwardly clears his throat. "Well, er, Gordon...how exactly to put this? It's not every day that you get to do such a big reveal, eh? Quite a lot of pressure to put on one scientist..." He's smiling apologetically. Gordon is vibrating with equal parts anger and anxiety.

"'None of this is real, is it?'" Coomer quotes, and Gordon goes very still and very cold. "I said that to you, Gordon! And I meant it! I always mean what I say to you, so please be sure to listen carefully so you don't miss any Tips or Tricks in the future."  
  
Gordon opens his mouth to say _something_ , and Coomer quickly continues. "But, ah, yes, before you go on demanding how that's relevant, as I know you're rather fond of doing...you, er, probably thought that was quite a startling thing for an Artificial Intelligence to say back then, eh Gordon? Very startling to hear that from your Virtual Reality Gaming Headset and Controller Accessories! I would certainly be very startled were I in those shoes," Coomer admits. Benry is fidgeting idly with a gun, but everyone else—Gordon included—is too tense to move. "But you see, Gordon, the, er...the thing is..."

Bubby takes over, his tone much more clinical. It doesn't help. "If you were just talking to us through a headset and controllers, you shouldn't be feeling any pain from anything that happens here."

"S'just a game, bro," Benry mumbles. Gordon can't even feel mad enough to hit him.

"But I _did_ feel it," he says weakly. "Or, I—I _felt_ it? It hurt worse than anything I've ever felt in my goddamn life. You _cut_ my _arm_ off—"

"Exactly, Gordon! From what I know from Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, cutting someone's arm off is a fairly deadly wound if left untreated, let alone if it's dragged through all the various tasty goops we've been frolicking through! And yet, well...you already know that this isn't real, Gordon. So, therefore..." Coomer trails off uncertainly again.

Benry puts a fucking _hand_ on Gordon's shoulder, and the sudden physical contact that _he didn't initiate_ makes him want to jump six feet in the air. "None of it's real," he states, blank-faced. "You're right in here with us, dude. You're not different just 'cause you're the one in the good guy clothes."

He wrenches himself out of Benry's grasp, pointing accusingly at all of them. "No, that—that doesn't make any _fucking_ sense. This is a simulation, that I'm doing _of you_ , and it's _fine_ if you all wanna play the goddamn spooky meta _Matrix_ _bullshit card,_ but I'm—" He holds his stump to prove his point. "Look! It didn't _really_ hurt, I was just _acting_ like it did to give you guys a cooler fucking _interaction_ with me—!"

His fingers squeeze too hard on the open wound, and he hisses in _pain._

"...Mr. Freeman, I don't think that's acting," Tommy says quietly. Bubby isn't even looking at him. Coomer and Benry are looking at him _too much,_ which is _worse._

Gordon realizes at some point they'd all stood up, mostly because at the moment all he wants to do is curl up on the ground, and it's farther away than he remembers. Everything feels that way, actually.

Everything continues to feel that way until he hears Benry's blue chill-out orbs flying into his fucking face again, and against his will, everything snaps back into focus. Benry's a lot closer than he's typically comfortable with. "Are you gonna ask for my fuckin' passport again?" he asks, for some unfathomable reason. "Could use the normalcy about now."

"It's not so bad, man," Benry says, and for once in maybe the entire time Gordon's known him, he looks bizarrely sincere. "You get used to it, y'know? You figure out new ways to fuck around. There's skeletons n'shit. Sometimes an Apeman'll walk in here with his entire fuckin' dick out. I got a PlayStation Plus Pass." The sincerity's wearing off. Even more bizarrely, he kind of doesn't mind right now. God, what a fucked up day this has been for _that_ to be the case.

"Yeah!" adds Tommy, as Benry and Gordon awkwardly exit one another's personal space bubbles. "And—and we're here with you too, Mr. Freeman! You always got us! Me and Dr. Bubby and Dr. Coomer and Sunkist!"

"Plus all my prototypes," Bubby says, with a shrug but a smile.

"Hello, Gordon!" Coomer agrees. "And what remains of my clones! Fortunately, I am one-hundred percent confident that we've wiped out the entirety of the United States military, so they should never fuck with the Science Team again!"

Distant sounds of missile strikes elsewhere in Black Mesa immediately prove that wrong, which Coomer of course neither comments on nor seems to even notice. Gordon somewhat unexpectedly lets out a laugh at the absurdly meticulous comedic timing. "Fuck, this isn't really much worse than everything else going on, huh."

"Alright, well _that shit's_ a problem for Not Today, boys," he says, as he lies back down and everyone else either sits on the floor or on top of an inexplicable crate. "Let's just...deal with it tomorrow if we're gonna deal with it. Go the fuck to sleep."

"Goodnight."

"Sweet dreams, Mr. Freeman!"

"Goodnight, Gordon!"

"Dude, scoot over more, your snoring is soooo fuckin' looouuuud."

Gordon does not scoot; he'll just wake up to find all five of them relocated somewhere else tomorrow anyway. Things happen, and they joke and laugh and yell, and then they collectively move on. 

Like clockwork.


End file.
